A rchive Date
[ 26-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
If Iraq can disown its past, there's hope
By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun
June 26, 2003
LONDON, Ont. -- The war to bring regime change to Saddam Hussein's Iraq is now headed into the history books.
There the debates will be recast, set in contexts, arguments for and against re-examined, lessons drawn, consequences explored, and judgments - always open to subsequent revisions - reached.
For Iraqis, however, a new history has opened. A new world of democracy beckons them to achieve their civilizational potential in modern times that once belonged to them in the distant past.
But in realizing the promise of a democratic future, Iraqis must first come to terms with their recent history, take ownership of that history, even as they must repudiate it with full awareness of what it has meant for them and their region. Iraqis are well prepared to do this, given their sufferings and their wretched experiences of the past several decades.
Their best and brightest, such as Kanan Makiya, Khidhir Hamza, Ahmed Chalabi, Hussein al-Shahristani and many more returning from exile abroad or emerging from the gulags of the deposed tyrant, are critically aware of what is required of them as a people so that this new opening of history may not once again be squandered.
There was nothing inevitable about a reborn Iraq, emerging from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, sliding into the utter depravity of Saddam Hussein's tribal despotism.
It was human agency that produced this ruin, and human agency of a new sort will be needed to construct an entirely opposite reality. Success will greatly depend upon the extent to which there is among Iraqis a broad understanding of America's place in their country and their democratic future will reflect how well and openly they embrace America in a partnership of mutual respect.
They have examples to draw on from the Far East of similar partnerships between Americans and Japanese, South Koreans, Taiwanese and, recently, Vietnamese, illustrating compellingly how nations at one time at odds with each other have moved beyond past wars and recriminations to building more prosperous economies for their people.
The division within the UN Security Council over Iraq before the war is now practically repaired. The approval of Resolution 1483 on May 22 by the Security Council provides the requisite international legitimacy to the U.S. and Britain as occupying powers, named as "authority" for an interim period to assist Iraqis in the formation of a representative government.
For historians of the Middle East there is irony here that Iraq, having emerged within living memory as an independent state under the authority of the League of Nations, is now placed by the authority of the League's successor under the "mandatory" supervision of great powers once again.
The reason for such an outcome is almost singular.
Iraq as a stalled and failed society, run by a despot who had not only committed genocide against his population but also posed an incalculable threat to others in a post-9/11 world, required a remedy of unprecedented nature. But Iraq was not alone in the region as a stalled and failed society.
Voices of recrimination, resentment, anger, frustration and humiliation percolating in the Middle East, unable to contend with their own unrepresentative authoritarian governments, will continue to recycle failed and discredited arguments of anti-imperialism (read anti-West) to deny, or de-legitimize Iraq's exit from a region that displays few signs for a better future so long as present trends continue.
Iraqis must remain wary of these voices, and others in the West reflecting a similar pathology of an ideologically driven anti-Americanism.
The world remains a bizarre place, burdened with sorrows and unnecessary tragedies. The gap between human knowledge and practice, between human capacity to do good and the lure of evil, illustrates the human condition as the permanent toil of Sisyphus.
Iraqis now have the opportunity to answer for themselves the question that history once posed to the Japanese.
Can they disown the past that produced Saddam Hussein, and embrace a democratic future, respectful of human rights and of peaceful coexistence with their neighbours?
If they can, Iraqis, with the requisite help of the Americans and Britons, may then offer some hope to the rest of the Middle East.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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